Accused Of Spying On American Citizens, Nsa Takes Case To The Public

Faced with charges from Europe and in the United States that it has grown into a faceless behemoth prying into private lives, the NSA on Wednesday broke out of its secretive shell to deny the charges and defend its mission.

The public-relations campaign, unprecedented for an agency whose very name was once a state secret, reached new levels as the Air Force general who runs the eavesdropping service testified in open session before a House oversight committee.

Air Force Lt. Gen. Michael Hayden, director of the NSA, denied charges that his multibillion-dollar agency has become a nosy Big Brother, reading all our e-mails and listening in on all our phone calls, as well as spying overseas on behalf of corporate America.

"All of these claims are false or misleading," Hayden said. "It is not technically possible to collect all electronic communications everywhere in the world on an indiscriminate basis."

The agency operates under oversight from Congress and the executive branch and it maintains a culture in which employees "are absolutely imbued with their personal responsibility" to respect the privacy of Americans, he said.

While defenders of the NSA point to strict laws limiting spying on Americans, the agency appears to be crying "Trust us."

"Is it theoretically possible for us to use that capability in ways that are prohibited? I would have to say yes," Hayden said. But he said that laws and the agency's desire to gain public confidence make that "well nigh impossible to do."

The trouble is, as the NSA acknowledges, that while the agency lacks the power its critics allege, its ability to listen to private communications is still formidable.

Further, while the agency specifically avoids targeting Americans, there are frequent exceptions, and some communications involving Americans fall into the agency's net.

The public defense before the House Select Intelligence Committee comes amid sharp criticism from European allies and negative publicity at home over an extensive spying program called Echelon.

A special report by the European Parliament alleges that Echelon is a giant information vacuum cleaner in which U.S. intelligence, along with counterparts in Canada, Britain, Australia and New Zealand, delves into private e-mails, confidential industrial files and virtually every cell phone call.

The critics allege the intercepts are sifted not only for indications of terrorism, espionage and other misdeeds but also for industrial secrets that might be valuable to U.S. companies for competitive reasons.

"The Anglo-Saxon Echelon eavesdropping network constitutes a serious infringement on national security and on the freedoms of all French people," Rene Galy-Djean, a French legislator, fumed earlier this year after release of the report.

In the U.S., a coalition of conservative lawmakers, Internet enthusiasts and civil libertarians are pressing for more congressional hearings into whether the nation's spies have gone too far.

"If the scope of Echelon is as large as has been reported, it may be that NSA is effectively engaged in communications surveillance of Americans that dwarfs that done by the FBI and other domestic law-enforcement agencies," the American Civil Liberties Union wrote to lawmakers recently.

Rep. Bob Barr (R-Ga.), who has led the push for hearings, told the Select Intelligence Committee on Wednesday that the NSA has not been subject to close scrutiny since the mid-1970s, when investigations disclosed that the agency had spied on Americans protesting the Vietnam War.

"Our citizens are left with a feeling of unease," Barr said. Without stronger safeguards, he said, "abuse can happen in an instant and continue for some time."

Severely limited in what it can discuss about its activities, the NSA is at a great disadvantage in this public debate.

NSA officials, for example, do not publicly discuss Echelon, even though the existence of the secret eavesdropping program has been disclosed in declassified U.S. government documents.

"We live in a society that distrusts power and secrecy and, guess what, we've got power and secrecy," said a senior NSA official.

As part of its public-relations strategy, the NSA has invited reporters to its headquarters for background briefings and even to make presentations about newsgathering to agency employees. The NSA made public a detailed memo to lawmakers on the rules that restrict it from spying on Americans.

The hearing Wednesday was called by Rep. Porter Goss (R-Fla.), a former CIA field operative and a defender of the NSA, in hopes that the agency's presentation would allay fears and quiet calls for tougher laws.

"There is another side to this," said Goss, who said restrictions on the agency should not result in "tying our hands or making our job [of collecting intelligence] impossible."